Tichy improves the lives of his students by Bob Mullin He stands in the center of Portland State University's main gymnasium surrounded by fitness equipment of his own design, a stocky, well-built man whose youthful appearance belies his 64 years. Near the entrance to the gym a small rectangular sign attached to the wall read'.i, "12 laps equals one mile," and dozens of people of all ages, ranging from theif 305 to their 70s. are jogging or walking around the perimeter of the huge gym. From lime to time, the robust man in the center of gym lx>oms outs: "Re-verse di-rection please!" And the joggers and wal kers turn and head the other way-"tD relieve stress on one side of the body," the man explains to someone standing next to him, "How'm I doing, Doc?" a voice calls.out from the perimeter, and the r,nan in the center waves his approval. "Not too much, now,'1 he cautions as an afterthought. "He was jogging the hills of Pennsylvania in the mid-1930s . .. " A grey-haired woman breaks from the group and approaches the man with an expression of concern on her face. "Dr. Tichy," she says, "the other night I was only two laps from finishing my workout when I felt a sharp twinge right here." Bending, she poi nts to a spot on her right knee. The man is quick to offer both advice and comfort. For nearly 30 years the above scene has been a fixture at PSU. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5 p.m., people of all sorts-fat, thin, tall, short, young, old-have been religiously taking the time to attend the Adult Fitness Program conducted by Michael W. Tichy, professor of health and physical education at PSU since 1954. It was in 1959 that Tichy launched the community fitness program ior a group of a half dozen men or so "because they were having more problems related to the cardio-vascular system. " Tichy says he felt that if these men got involved in endurance type of exercise "they would eliminate such silly habits as smoking, mooify their (Bob Mullin is a freelance writer in Portland and a frequent contributor to· Perspective. He is also a former PSU student.) years of great teaching drinking habits and watch their diet because they were doing some positive things for their bodies." He was right. The program grew over the years, enrolling as many as 130 adults in a class. PartiCipants often included heart and stroke patients referred to the program by doctors in the area. Of course Tichy is widely known for many other contributions to health and physical fitness. He has been teaching for 40 years, most of that time at Portland Stale. He has promoted the organization of fitness programs as special consultant to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and other organizations. He also has invented and marketed a variety of devices designed for fitness testing and development. Born in 1921 in Pittston, Pa., Tichy remembers " never deviating" from an interest in health, fitness and physical education from the sixth grade on. He was jogging the hills of Pennsylvania in the mid-1930s, decades before the word "jog" entered the vocabularies of millions of fitness-conscious Americans. During World War II Tichy worked with sports and rehabilitation programs, launching his teaching career in 1946. He served as an associate PE professor at Ihe UniverSity of Portland for five years (1949-54), the last two as department head, and for a time coached tennis teams Ihat set a national record winning streak of 80 straight matches. Tichy worked part-time at Portland State in 1952 and took over full-time duties in 1954. " I enjoy teaching," he says, "and with the writing and research I am now doing, it makes it even more meaningful." The writing includes a book Tichy is putting together on exercises for the elderly, one of his specialties, and the research involves a project aimed at simplifying the procedure for determining individual fitness levels, a project, beginning in m i d ~ M a y , that will bring to PSU a leading authority in exercise phYSiology, Herbert DeVries, from the University of Southern California. In his role as fitness council consultant Tichy has worked under five U.S. administrations. "I touch a lot of bases," he says. "Anyone who has any questions from this area of the country is referred to me." Tichy helped set up fitness programs at Safeway and the YMCA. He also helped launch a testing and instruction program for statewide law enforcement agencies, a program he calls one of the most unique in the nation. "We teach them everything from handling stress problems to drinking modification," he says. Tichy began designing fitness equipment when he noticed "some terrible things happening with testing. " An example was the inaccuracy in measuring flexibility. "The old "When you have a 76-year-old running, you know it's a good program. " method was to put a yardstick on the floor," says Tichy. "But it wasn't reproducible. One time your heel would be at the 15-inch mark and another time it would be at the 14-inch mark. Because of the variation in position, you couldn't know whether you'd improved or not. '· As a result Tichy designed----and marketed-the Tichy Test-O-Flex, which, according to product literature, "improves reliability and validity of flexibility measurements." Other Tichy inventions include a stretch bench "to improve the range of motion in certain body areas," an instrument for measuring calories burned depending on weight, activity and time spent; and Flex-O-Straps for stretching legs. "I'm something of an entrepreneur," he explains with il grin. Continued on page 18 PSU Perspective, Spring 1986 I page 3
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